


young gods

by grimmauld



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Fluff, Lesbian Character, Mild Angst, No Second War with Voldemort, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Prompt Fill, cause i got lazy and just ended up posting whoops, do not copy to another site, established marcus/oliver, halfblood!pansy, september owls, they're only mentioned anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 12:57:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20815550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimmauld/pseuds/grimmauld
Summary: “So, Pansy,” Harry started, looking at her with something akin to mischief in his eyes.She looked back at him, a pleasant flush on her cheeks from the fire roaring in the mantle (and maybe also from the company she was in.)“Hm?”“Any new girls in your life? Any crushes?” He asked, glancing just for a moment at Hermione.





	young gods

**Author's Note:**

> written for the hogwartsonline (tumblr) september owls! it was a fun time and i defs wanna participate in future events!
> 
> come hang on tumblr: @gaylupin

It was different at Hogwarts. When her parents had attended in the ’70s there was the looming threat of war, and pain, and genocide. But Voldemort fell, the Death Eaters ranks collapsed and the wizarding world integrated. Muggleborns were accepted, slowly. It took years but by the time Pansy was born, the world has become so much brighter. Good things can rise from the ashes of hate; acceptance comes from learning.

-

When Pansy was three years old she had her first instance of accidental magic. She turned her hair a brilliant shade of royal blue. Her parents took one look at her and laughed and laughed. It took them a whole day to turn it back to brown. She was five years old when her mother sat her in front of her vanity and began to teach her the proper way for an upper-class English girl to act. She was five years old when her father plonked her onto a broomstick. Her upbringing was a confusing mix of etiquette training and rough-and-tumble Quidditch practice. She was seven years old when she decided that she was going to be the best chaser for her house at Hogwarts that they had ever seen. At eleven, when her Hogwarts letter arrived in the mail and Minerva McGonagall had paid them a visit, she began to pack her trunk. On September first, her parents took her to Kings Cross station and her mother waited on platform nine as her father took her across to nine and three quarters.

The carriage she chose was bright, the sun streaming in through the window as the train pulled jerkily from the station. She heard the telltale _ shhhhk _of the door sliding open, but kept her eyes trained on the trees passing as a blur from the window. She heard the door slide closed once more and finally turned her head.

Standing in the doorway were two boys—one with milk-white skin and tightly combed back blond hair and another with darker skin, dark eyes and a dark attitude if the scowl was anything to go by—and a pretty girl with mousy brown hair tied back with a dainty black ribbon. Pansy gave them a small smile and gestured to the empty seats.

“Hi,” she said, trying to hide how nervous she was.

“Hullo,” the girl replied.

“Hello,” the blond boy said.

“Hey,” said the other boy.

“My name’s Pansy. Pansy Parkinson.”

“I’m Daphne,” the girl said.

“My name is Draco Malfoy,” said the blond boy.

“Blaise Zabini, a pleasure to meet you,” the other boy said.

The rest of the trip was spent chatting. They talked about everything, from how nervous they were about which house they’d get (_ “I’ll be in Slytherin, of course. Mother and Father were, so it’s likely I will be, too,” Draco said, with all the airs and graces of the upper-class. _ ) to the classes they were most excited to take ( _ “I think I’d quite like potions,” Daphne said. “I reckon I’d like transfiguration best,” Blaise told them. _). By the end of the train ride, Pansy had grown so comfortable with the two boys that she had her feet in Draco’s lap and head on Blaise’s shoulder. Daphne sat sprawled across the chair in front of them. 

They reached the castle, finally, all the first years convened in the great hall and watched as the sorting ceremony began.

-

_ “Abbot, Hannah.” _

_ “Hufflepuff!” _

_ “Bones, Susan.” _

_ “Hufflepuff!” _

_ “Finnigan, Seamus.” _

_ “Hufflepuff!” _

_ “Granger, Hermione.” _

_ “Ravenclaw!” _

_ “Greengrass, Daphne.” _

_ “Ravenclaw!” _

_ “Longbottom, Neville.” _

_ “Gryffindor!” _

_ “Malfoy, Draco.” _

_ “Slytherin!” _

_ “Nott, Theodore.” _

_ “Hufflepuff!” _

“Parkinson, Pansy,” McGonagall called.

“Slytherin!”

_ “Potter, Harry.” _

_ “Gryffindor!” _

_ “Thomas, Dean.” _

_ “Gryffindor!” _

_ “Weasley, Ronald.” _

_ “Hufflepuff!” _

_ “Zabini, Blaise.” _

_ “Slytherin!” _

-

Pansy thrived in Slytherin. Six years ago, when she was first sorted, she was afraid of the connotations Slytherin held, but now she couldn’t see herself anywhere but the dungeons. Of their graduating class, she was the fastest sort the hat had made. She walked through the basement halls to the dungeon rooms and commanded attention. She was their queen, she was righteous and she was perfect. When the trio—Pansy, Draco and Blaise—were together all eyes fell to them. Pansy loved it. She lived in it.

She was gorgeous. They were the two best looking guys in Slytherin. The three fit together and they _ owned it. _ Pansy, with her long legs and flirty demeanour, Draco with his piercing silver eyes and soft hair (he finally let it fall in his face, rather than combing it back), and Blaise’s _ come hither _look that made all the girls (and a fair amount of the guys) swoon. They were young, and they were beautiful, and it seemed that nothing could touch them.

She was Quidditch captain again this year. Her last year. Her cousin, Marcus, had graduated a few years back and she had taken over the team from him. Gryffindor and Slytherin were still the running champions. Marcus’s boyfriend, Oliver, had handed over captaincy to Potter, and Pansy refused to let him win (even if they were alright friends).

It was interesting. Hogwarts was so different than when her parents were at the school. The houses mingled and aside from the healthy competition, there was no enmity, no rivalry. Harry Potter’s best friends’ were a Ravenclaw and a Hufflepuff. One of Pansy’s ex-girlfriends was a Hufflepuff, the other a Ravenclaw. Blaise had dated from every house there was. 

-

She’s sitting in the captain's office after curfew one night, going over the plays she wanted to practice with her team the next day when the door slammed open. Harry walked into the building, dragging Hermione Granger after him. She wasn’t a Quidditch captain, not even a player, but Pansy just glanced at them with a smile and tucked her head back down to work. Granger looked really pretty in the blue light of the moon through the window. They (she) hated each other (she hated Pansy, Pansy faked it).

“Potter, you know that you can’t bring your entourage in here.”

“Shut up, Pansy. Figured you’d be here. Keys weren’t on the hook.”

She bit back a grin as she lifted her head to raise a single, perfectly manicured eyebrow at him and shake the keys around in her fingers. He smiled cheekily at her. She turned back to her plays. Glaring disparagingly at them, she sighed and swept her papers together and bound them with a single bulldog clip. They would be of no use to her while she was dead tired. She tossed the keys at Potter’s head, just missing him.

“Lock up when you’re done, I’m not getting in shit with Hooch because of you.”

He glanced up from where he was pouring over his own plays, and smiled sunnily, “Night.”

She nodded at him. Granger glanced up with a small frown on her face. They locked eyes accidentally, frozen in a moment. Pansy schooled her face into a scowl.

“Try not to ruin anything, Granger.”

When she was out of the office she collapsed against the cobblestone wall and let the wind and the moon wash over her as she caught what little breath she could. She was disgustingly gorgeous. Disgusting, because how dare she make Pansy feel this way. What gave her the right.

Pansy slid down the wall, knees hitting into her chest as she wrapped her arms around herself and just let herself feel for a moment, in the deep blue of the night where no one could ever know she was alive. She was alive during the night. Not the stone-cold queen, just a girl. A girl in love with someone who would never want her. She was aching. Body, mind and heart. Her lungs were splitting down the middle and all she could feel was a deep and numbing want.

And then an owl in the owlery hooted, startling from her heartbreak reverie. She stood and shook herself over. _ Out, out damned spot. _No more. She plastered a neutral expression onto her face, shook her bangs from her eyes and started up the path to the castle. 

-

It was difficult to hate Hermione Granger. She was not a dislikeable girl. Attractive in an odd way, blisteringly smart and just so kind. Before the Wizarding War she would have been looked at deploringly. _ Mudblood, _they would have called her. But times were different now, people had changed and Voldemort had fallen. That word had been struck from the vocabulary of every Hogwarts student, every witch and wizard. 

Pansy remembered when the Triwizard Tournament had been hosted two years ago. The Beauxbaton and Durmstrang students had joined their school and were horrified at even the idea of using those words, the blood words. _ Dirty words. _ Pansy agreed with them so vehemently. Her house had a sombre cloud painted over their heads, _ they were the bad house, evil house. _They weren’t. They weren’t bad, they weren’t evil, they were so much better now.

There was almost no animosity between houses now. Except, well, Hermione and Pansy.

-

_ “Parkinson, could you quit blocking the library entrance, some of us have actual work to do.” _

_ “I hate you,” (I love you.) _

-

_ “Fuck off, Granger.” _

_ “Pansy, what the fuck?” _

_ “Shut up, Ginny.” (I love her.) _

-

Draco had started _ dating _ Potter. It’s not that Pansy didn’t expect it to happen, they had been heading there since first year. It’s just that Draco, Pansy and Blaise were a package deal. So were Harry, Ron from Hufflepuff and Hermione. Yeah.

With Draco seeing Harry the time they spent together increased from the odd potions group project to _ every fucking day. _ Pansy loved seeing Draco happy, he truly did deserve it after what he had gone through with his father, but being around _ Granger _so often was taking a toll on Pansy’s nerves. 

Pansy had begun to distance herself from Draco and Blaise. She could feel herself doing it, though it wasn’t intentional. She started hanging around Ginny Weasley, who was a real asset to the Slytherin Quidditch team, and Theo Nott. Daphne sometimes phased in and out, Pansy missed her (but dating someone tended to make friendship rather challenging upon breaking up.) It was clear to Pansy that if _ she _ had noticed then there was no way that Draco hadn’t. Her best friend was annoyingly perceptive when he needed to be.

She was right. It took less than a day from when she first realised she was distancing herself for him to corner her. She slid down, back against the cool wall of the Slytherin common room. Draco towered above her, emotion burning, raging, in his eyes, clear as day.

“You’ve been avoiding me. Why?”

She paused. “Care to elaborate?”

Draco cocked his head to one side, eyes scanning her face, searching for an answer _ she didn’t have. _Well, no answer other than: your boyfriend’s best friend is impossibly attractive and I’m in love with her, problem being that she hates my guts.

“No, but I want you to answer the fucking question.”

“Your boyfriend’s best friend is impossibly attractive and I’m only a little bit in love with her but she hates even the idea of me and that is painful to be subject to every single day.”

Draco was silent. He slid down next to her and leaned his head on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry, I’ve been an arsehole.”

She leant her head to rest on his, “Yeah. Sorry I’ve been a bitch.”

“Yeah.”

Draco knowing how she felt was a weight she didn’t know she was carrying lifted from her shoulders. He made her join them still, but let her leave when she had to.

-

It happened, finally, three months after Pansy and Draco’s breakdown conversation. Pansy, Draco, Blaise, Ron, Harry and Hermione were all seated at a warm booth in the Three Broomsticks, talking comfortably with a seemingly endless stream of butterbeer flowing between their mugs and their mouths. The conversation was none too unpleasant, they spoke of classes and post-Hogwarts dreams. They talked about their families, Harry’s godfather and his werewolf husband, Pansy’s muggle mother, Blaise’s new stepdad. They teased Harry and Draco, they teased Blaise about his current fling. They talked about Quidditch (and laughed when Ron’s ears flamed a brilliant red when a certain Bulgarian seeker was mentioned). They acted like _ teenagers. _It was comfortable. Nice. 

“So, Pansy,” Harry started, looking at her with something akin to mischief in his eyes.

She looked back at him, a pleasant flush on her cheeks from the fire roaring in the mantle (and maybe also from the company she was in.)

“Hm?”

“Any new girls in your life? Any _ crushes_?” He asked, glancing just for a moment at Hermione.

Did Draco tell him? Or was she obvious? A thousand questions a second flew through her brain at the speed of a golden snitch. She snapped her eyes to him from where they had wandered around the room.

“Why?” She asked sharply, before realising that was probably the reaction he was looking for, and tried futilely to force a look of genial good humour onto her features. She wasn’t sure it worked. Her bone structure wasn’t one for anything but _ sharp. _

“Well, I was just thinking, you and Hermione. This’ll either end in a fist fight or…” He trailed off suggestively.

Hermione had whipped her head up fast when her name was mentioned, a ruddy blush colouring her cheeks, Pansy was certain her neck would crack. Her curls flew with the momentum and, horribly, Pansy thought she was so gorgeous like this; the flaming anger in her eyes and wild, erratic movements—it was stunning. Pansy felt her jaw go slack without her permission as she looked between Potter and Hermione.

“Harry! I really don’t think-” Hermione started before cutting herself off. 

Pansy stood up, pushing herself up and out from the booth. “Fuck off, Potter,” she snarled before storming from the pub. She could hear someone calling her name, though she made no effort to wait.

She made it no more than three steps away from the front door before she heard her name being called once more. She didn’t turn around but she did slow somewhat. She felt fingers wrap around her wrist and drag her down an alley. Hermione was standing in front of her, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. 

“Look, I’m sorry about Harry,” she started, “he seems to think that all of his friends have to be in relationships now that he is. Plus, he knows that I’m bi and he seems to think that I have a thing for you.”

“Well, do you?”

Hermione looked taken aback. Maybe Pansy was too forward?

“I- uh- I don’t- I don’t know what answer you- you want?”

Huh. She had never heard Hermione stutter before. She was always calm, collected, cool. Did Pansy have that much of an effect on her or was she just awkward about having to reject her.

“Was he right? Do you have a thing for me?”

“I- I mean- You’re gorgeous. You know you’re gorgeous. You’re cool, and so fucking smart. Everything about you sets me on fire and Harry _ knows that. _ I know you hate me, and you probably hate me more now that you know this but- I- Pansy you’re everything. I _ really _like you.”

Pansy quirked an eyebrow in question. Hermione nodded, just once. Pansy grinned wolfishly.

“Shut up for a second, Granger,” Pansy growled as she shoved Hermione against the cool cobblestone wall none too gently, their lips impossibly close. Hermione glanced down, staring at the soft rose of Pansy’s mouth, her tongue slipped out to run along her bottom lip. Pansy felt her knees grow weaker.

“Pansy-” Hermione whispered, lips brushing against Pansy’s with the movement. Pansy couldn’t hold back. She connected their lips with such force that their teeth clacked painfully. Hermione pulled back a touch, as far as she could with the wall behind her, and giggled lightly. 

“Fuck- Sorry-” Pansy mumbled before leaning back in, eyes slipping closed.

The kiss was pretty much perfect. Hermione tasted of strawberry lip balm. Her lips were as soft as velvet, her skin smooth under Pansy’s fingertips. Pansy felt Hermione’s tongue snake out to slide against her lips, she opened her mouth to let it in. Pansy’s tongue ventured out to lick into Hermione’s mouth. She tasted like strawberries, still, and sweet butterbeer. She tasted like heaven. 

Pansy wasn’t sure when she ended up against the wall, but somehow Hermione had her pressed against the cobbles, and slotted their legs together, short skirts making for easy skin-on-skin contact. She was queen of Slytherin, she was getting the life snogged out of her; she was seventeen. She pulled back from the kiss, just for a moment.

“I’ve never hated you,” Pansy whispered softly, eyes scanning Hermione's face, trying to bare her emotions in such a way she was previously unused to. Hermione grinned back at her and closed her eyes again.

Hermione’s weight was firm against her, their chests pressing together, thighs, hands, in a warm embrace; a teenage tango of intertwining lips. Teeth clacking and tongues meeting. One of them let out a sound, barely a moan, Pansy didn’t know who it was with their mouths pressed so firmly together, all sounds were mixed into the kiss. Lost to the ether of pursed lips.

“Prob’ly shouldn’t be doing this here,” Hermione said, after she pulled so minutely back. Pansy just leaned in to chase her lips once more.

It felt like hours—but was probably far, far less than—before they stopped kissing. Pansy groaned in disappointment. Hermione pressed a chaste kiss to her lips, _ twice, three times. _

“I’ll see you?” She murmured.

“Yeah, I’ll see you.” Pansy replied, just as quiet. Disappointed.

They kissed again, hands fumbling for one another, fingers intertwining with a soft squeeze. Pansy pulled away, the heat of the afternoon sunlight ached from where it cast across their skin. Hermione looked beautiful. Otherworldly. Pansy told her as much, if only to watch the blush bloom across her cheeks.

They parted ways—Pansy walked up the dirt path to the castle, Hermione remained at the wall, shrouded almost instantly in shadows when Pansy went to look back.

She smiled to herself, something sort of bittersweet. God, they really needed to talk about this. But not tonight. It was a one night thing, she reminded herself. Stress relief.

The stars shone brightly above her.

“Pansy! Wait up!” Hermione called from a few metres behind her. She paused, not turning, and waited for the other girl.

Their fingers slipped together as they walked up the path in the cold wind of the night. Maybe this wasn’t a one-time get-all-your-sexual-tension-out thing. Maybe they had a chance to be more than this.

_ Do you feel like a young god? _

**Author's Note:**

> comment / kudos xx


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